just received the write-ups for Merrill's baseball plays from him
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MLB | Apr 24 '09 (7:05p)
Texas Rangers vs Baltimore Orioles Baltimore Orioles
-135 at betus
The Orioles continue their home stand as they begin their series with the Texas Rangers. These two met once already this year in Arlington with the O's taking two of three. On Friday it'll be a rematch of a wild 10-9 affair with Vicente Padilla taking on Koji Uehara. Padilla is 1-1 with a 9.64 ERA this season and hasn’t taken his show on the road yet. Padilla is 1-6 against the Orioles with an ERA of 10.23 and a WHIP of 2.306. Last two trips to Baltimore were 10-4 and 9-0 losses for the righthander. Texas GM Jon Daniels admitted some concern over his decreased velocity as well so he may be pitching for his rotation spot. Baltimore hits .361 against the righthander with Brian Roberts (10-15), Nick Markakis (8-12) and Aubrey Huff (6-9) tattooing Padilla.
Baltimore sends Koji Uehara to the mound. He is 2-1 with a 5.29 ERA so far this season but in his lone start at home he gave up one earned run in five innings of work. The Rangers managed to hit the righty in Arlington but still couldn’t get the win. Texas has also lost two straight on the road and are staring at four games with the Orioles.
Play ORIOLES (-) (action) as 1 unit play.
MLB | Apr 24 '09 (7:10p)
Atlanta Braves vs Cincinnati Reds Total
8½ un-110 at bookm
The Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves begin a three game series in Cincinnati on Friday. Atlanta sends Javier Vazquez to the mound and he's been stellar so far this season going 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA. Last time out he gave up zero earned runs in six innings in an 11-1 win over the Pirates. Historically Vazquez is 3-2 with a 5.49 ERA and a WHIP of 1.339 against the Reds but he hasn’t faced them since 2005. Because of this not many Reds have a history with the tough righthander. Only 5 Reds have faced him. That group is hitting .338 against Vazquez but doesn’t include too many of Cincinnati's big boppers.
Cincinnati sends Edinson Volquez to the mound. He's struggled so far this year going 2-1 with a 6.46 ERA which balloons up to 8.31 at home in his lone appearance there. Volquez was good his last outing giving up only one earned run in six innings in a 4-2 win over the Astros. Volquez has been able to hold down the Braves in his two appearances against them. He is 0-1 with a 2.25 ERA and a WHIP of 1.167 against them with both games going under. The Braves hit .273 against the righthander but Chipper Jones, Kelly Johnson, Jeff Francoeur all check in at .200 against him.
Both teams are also on nice Under streaks with the Reds going under the total six of their last seven. Atlanta has gone under three straight games as well.
Play UNDER as a 1 unit play.
MLB | Apr 24 '09 (9:40p)
San Francisco Giants vs Arizona Diamondbacks Total
8½ un-120 at spbook
It's a rematch of a crazy series in San Francisco last weekend in which all three games ended 2-0 with San Francisco taking two of three. Tim Lincecum goes for San Francisco in this one. He was on the losing end of the 2-0 game in San Fran. He's bounced back from a slow start striking out 13 Arizona batters in that one. Lincecum is still looking for his first win of the season and he is 3-1 with a 1.89 ERA and a WHIP of 0.936 against the D-Backs. Arizona is hitting .203 against him with Chris Young (.091), Stephen Drew (.100), Chad Tracy (.077), Felipe Lopez (.167) and Eric Byrnes (.167) are particularly futile.
Doug Davis goes for the Diamondbacks and he's 1-2 with a 2.57 ERA. Davis shut down the Giants scattering eight hits over eight innings in the April 18th outing. Davis is 4-4 with a 3.84 ERA against the Giants. San Fran does have the hitters that have been able to touch up Doug Davis but so far this season SF's offense has been futile. They have averaged only 3.3 runs per game which goes down to 2.3 on the road. Arizona's not much better averaging 3.6 runs.
Steve Merrill 4/24/2009: SOMEONE WANT TO GET MIKE ROSE?
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